Following in the footsteps of West Country acts like Muse and Thirteen Senses by already winning over interest from various major and independent record labels, things are definitely looking good for the boys. Having recently been asked to support New Zealand favourites The Checks who have just finished touring with the likes of JET and Oasis.

"I know someone who knows someone who knows the guy from Young Heart Attack quite well"

Even in the realm of student media this is BAAAAAAAAD though, Steve - I flick through Exepose every week and this is BY FAR the worst thing I've ever seen in it; hence not starting a thread every week.

blueski and Matt DC offtm, this is the new web2.0 media era, we're all critics now, user provided content is the new professionally written content.

-- Dom Passantino, Monday, 18 June 2007 12:36 (11 minutes ago) Link

Dom is entirely correct here. I mean, the chuckle factor is diminished by him being a student, but the democratization of criticism basically leaves us with this sort of landscape (coughcoughP.E.W.cough).

but the democratization of criticism basically leaves us with this sort of landscape (coughcoughP.E.W.cough).

democratization of criticism = people slagging this shit off just because they can rather than for any constructive cause. it's just easy target practice, who gives a shit? no-one/nothing is ever going to stop under-grads inheriting these absurd ideas about 'how things should be' in the music industry. surely we've all read this same article many times in the past.

i'm just more relieved than ever my music writing from college days was too soon for blog-era internet heh.

I wrote a two-part article in my uni paper called "Rhythm & Sound", which basically stated that all rock music that's based on melody or lyrics is boring crap, and that beats and sound are the essential components of good music - hence electronic dance music (and fusion jazz) is the best music there is. I got some angry comments from the indie kids.

that Anthony Lane paragraph he quotes is awful. "it's fine to write about pop-culture as long as you are sneering and dismissive" - can't understand how anyone can think that this would lead to good writing?

there's probably something to be said about how everyone who derides carly rae jepsen assumes her to be much younger than she is. it reflects an arms length engagement *and* an unwillingness to dig in and think about why they're so bothered. have any of the anti crj broadsides discussed her, you know, music?

Yeah. I mean, I disagree with the thesis but it's not unsound; I think he wants to sway things too far in the opposite direction. The Kennedy Center Honors should be open across the spectrum and I would hope for a diverse group of honorees from disciplines popular and esoteric.

That said, LL as the first rapper to get an honor is both fitting and kind of weird. I guess Chuck D's sweet spot was too short for him to be a serious candidate and Will Smith was way too bubblegum to have credibility.

I guess I feel like the distinction that Kennicott (and many commenters) are drawing between traditional/classic art forms, on the one hand, and popular/commercial art forms, on the other, is not being given much scrutiny.

Also if, indeed, the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of LL Cool J / Eagles / Lionel, it may be worth remembering how long popular music was kept _out_ of consideration as Serious Art(TM). I am not the right person to unpack how much elitism or class/race/gender stuff has been involved, but surely that's at least worth mentioning as a factor in what gets taken seriously as art?

I don't have a problem with any of them getting a Kennedy Center Honor! I do think it's reasonable to make an argument that Sam Shepard dying without one is a shame. It's also reasonable to make the argument that it is a little weird to give one to Gloria Estefan before giving one to Renee Fleming.

That distinction is a couple of centuries old, with a plethora of literature scrutinizing it. Kennicott clearly has an opinion on it that is different from yours, and somewhat different from mine, but I don't think it's exceptionally extreme or poorly grounded, in terms of being a candidate for "worst piece of music writing ever".

(Also, going by Wikipedia, Fred Astaire and Richard Rodgers received KCHs in the first year they were awarded.)

it's not the _worst_ piece of music writing ever, but i'm impressed that bill wyman has the clout and social skills to presumably get paid for this piece of sub-dave marsh hackwork. at least when marsh came up with a zinger, he was brief.

Do you like prog rock, the extravagantly conceptual and wildly technical post-psychedelic subgenre that ruled the world for about 30 seconds in the early 1970s before being torn to pieces by the starving street dogs of punk rock? Do you like the proggers, with their terrible pampered proficiency, their priestly robes, and their air—once they get behind their instruments—of an inverted, almost abscessed Englishness? I don’t.

If Weigel were David Foster Wallace, he would have written his entire book from inside that cruise ship, possibly never leaving his cabin, eavesdropping on snatches of music and chitchat and sending out his imagination in heavy spirals of paranoia and insight. But Weigel is a political reporter for The Washington Post, so he climbs off that wiggy, proggy boat and treads onto the dry land of chronology.